Planning your own Indian odyssey

Where to start

Booking train tickets from outside India has recently become more awkward, with the need for an Indian mobile phone number to be entered when making reservations, although there are ways around this. The Man in Seat Sixty-One (seat61.com) offers an excellent, up-to-date guide to the ticketing bureaucracy, costs and classes. But the best bet is to visit Shankar Dandapani, the British representative for Indian Railways (indiarail.co.uk), at his Wembley office, where he can help you to plan routes, book journeys and provide you with a prepaid Indrail pass if you plan on taking a number of trains. Other useful sites include indiarailinfo.com and cleartrip.com, which charges a small fee to book tickets, but accepts all foreign credit cards.

Possible routes

Indian Railways has something for every kind of person, time-frame and budget. If you’re pushed for time, start in Mumbai and travel down to Mangalore via the Konkan railway – a 475-mile stretch with the Arabian Sea on one side and the Sahyadri Hills on the other. Then take the Yeshvantpur Express through the lush green Western Ghats to Bangalore, one of the most scenic routes on the entire network – particularly through Sakleshpur and Hassan – filled with waterfalls, coconut groves and bridges. If you want to travel in grand style, try the seven-night Pride of the South tour on the Golden Chariot (thegoldenchariot.co.in), which starts in Bangalore and weaves through Mysore, Kabini National Park, Badami and the World Heritage Site at Hampi to Vasco da Gama in Goa.



How does it all work?

The booking system opens locally 120 days in advance of a journey, so plan for long journeys and overnight trips. However, it is fine to turn up at the station for short hops and local passenger trains. Most major cities have a foreign tourist desk, where you can take advantage of the foreign tourist quota on certain journeys, and female travellers can go to the ladies-only counters for faster service.

There are eight classes, from first class air-conditioned to general unreserved, so work out which suits your needs and budget. There is also a “tatkal” – meaning “immediate” – system for last-minute travel, under which a handful of tickets is released at 10am the day before a train is due to depart.

What’s the food like?

Meals are included in the fare on Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto trains, while Indian Railways catering staff come around to take orders on other trains soon after departure, returning to collect payment and tips after you’re finished. If you’re jumping out at stations to eat the platform snacks, eat freshly cooked hot food and drink bottled water such as Aquafina or Kinley. Keep a stock of apples, biscuits and banana chips in case it’s a while before the next stop.

Dos and don’ts

Be courteous to your companions and follow the rules for putting down berths and switching off lights at 9pm. Take phone calls in the vestibule and keep noise to a minimum. Others may not observe this, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.

Don’t throw your rubbish in the bin under the sink – it just gets flung out of the door later. Keep it tied up and take it when you get off.

Women travelling alone on overnight services should book into AC3tier and above and choose an upper berth to be out of reach of wandering hands.

Claustrophobics won’t enjoy the upper berth of the AC3tier compartment as the distance between your nose and the ceiling isn’t huge. The same goes for the side upper berth, which is ever so slightly narrower than the others. Its three closed sides and drawn curtain give the feeling of sleeping in a moving coffin.